10 million reasons that Obamacare is a success

Winston Churchill famously stated that “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.” One is increasingly tempted to offer the same assessment of Obamacare.

Is it flawed and messy? Absolutely. Could we call envision a scenario in which each of us — acting as philosopher kings — could craft a better system? Sure.

But when it gets down to the nitty-gritty of making something work in a huge, complex and wildly diverse nation, the following AP story[1] tells you what you need to know about Obamacare on July 24, 2014:

A new study estimates that more than 10 million adults gained health insurance by midyear as the coverage expansion under President Barack Obama’s law took hold in much of the country.

The study published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine found that the share of Americans ages 18 to 64 without insurance dropped by a little more than 5 percentage points.

States that embraced the law’s Medicaid expansion saw significant coverage gains among low-income uninsured people. About half the states have expanded.

The law offers subsidized private insurance for middle-class people who don’t have access through their jobs and expanded Medicaid for low-income adults.

The latest study results are in line with findings by Gallup and with estimates from the Congressional Budget Office.